Associate - We-Can Project

The Women Empowered for Climate resilience through Ag iNnovation (WE-CAN) project is enabling women smallholder farmers to equitably access and adopt evidence-based, next-generation climate-smart input – biofertilizers; which contributes to improved soil health, crop productivity, income and resilience to climate change. The project is operational in Jhabua District, Madhya Pradesh with the implementation support of a civil society partner and technical support of a private sector partner.

The UN Volunteer will support with 1) field-level engagement with women smallholder farmers who are part of the program 2) collecting data and supporting reporting process on what works 3) Developing creative communication and knowledge products. This role provides hands-on exposure to gender-responsive and climate-resilient agriculture programming.

Under the overall supervision of WE-CAN Project Manager and day-to-day reporting to State Lead Madhya Pradesh, the UN Associate Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

1. Support in community engagement and women farmer capacity building:

- assist project partners in organizing and documenting training sessions, community meetings, and awareness activities with women smallholder farmers.
- support preparation of training materials, participate in field visits, capture farmer feedback, and help ensure that women's perspectives and experiences are reflected in project activities.

2. Assist with field data collection, monitoring and documenting progress:
- support the collection, compilation, and analysis of project data related to women's adoption of cli-mate-smart agricultural innovations, including biofertilizers and other emerging technologies. Responsibilities may include conducting surveys, entering and cleaning data, documenting success stories, and supporting monitoring visits to project sites. This will help strengthen evidence generation on what works to improve women's access to climate-resilient agricultural innovations.

3. Contribute to knowledge product development and communications:
- support the development of case studies, learning briefs, photo stories, presentations, and social media content showcasing project achievements and lessons learned.
- Working closely with UN Women and implementing partners, help document innovative approaches that position women smallholder farmers as leaders and innovators in climate adaptation and sustainable agriculture

Examples of potential assignments include:
• Engaging with women farmers to assess their challenges to adoption of biofertilizers, enablers in technology adoption and learning gaps.
• Documenting lessons learned in field logs with recommendations to strengthen the pilot program.
• Piloting select recommendations to strengthen positive impact for women farmers.
• Conducting a literature review of climate-smart agricultural innovation programs and how they have ensured adoption by women farmers.
•Develop a list of best practices and recom-mendations from the literature review in a technical report.
• Collate successful models of engaging women farmers as innovators or lead farmers.
•Develop 3-5 participatory and creative modules of trainings for women farmers on leadership, decision-making in the household, and climate-smart agricultural practices. Use visual tools, games, and discussions. Pilot modules and document how to improve for scaling.
• Conduct a market assessment for smallholder farmer’s use of fertilizer, biofertilizer, and other inputs to understand demand, supply and perceptions.
•Provide a short report on the assessment.
• Develop a creative photo-story to document women farmer’s voices and journey as innova-tors.
•Document farmer’s perceptions of climate change, project impact, learnings and challenges.